The Meaning of Family
by Mai Kusakabe
Summary: Edward Newgate had just taken the first step in forming his family and his worldview had already been challenged in the form of a mouthy teenage girl.


As a general rule, I like to pretend Oda's bullshit comment about women in the Whitebeard Pirates doesn't exist. However, I got this idea while reading Anjelle's "Rule 63" drabble, which somehow turned into… well, this.

Story beta-read by Anjelle :)

* * *

 **The Meaning of Family**

Edward Newgate was finally leaving his crew. It had taken him months of deliberation, but he had made up his mind once the rest had decided they couldn't take any more of the Grand Line and had turned around only after visiting a few islands of the place some called Paradise. However, Newgate didn't want to start his own adventure as captain inside the Grand Line itself, there was a certain appeal into recruiting a crew brave enough to sail that sea in one of the calmer Four Blues and sail Grand Line with them from the very start at Reverse Mountain. Thus, he had decided to leave for South Blue with this crew, and stayed with them until they reached an island with a decent shipyard to buy his own ship.

They had been warned beforehand, of course —they had known for a long time that Newgate's dreams and objectives differed from theirs— and the guys had decided to throw him a farewell party. It was mostly an excuse for the guys to get drunk at the only bar in the port area of town, but Newgate appreciated the gesture.

As it had become customary ever since Newgate revealed his dream, the jokes didn't take long to appear. They ranged from him adopting a shit ton of abandoned kids and turning them into his own personal marine-killing army to building himself a harem on a ship.

It was around the time the jokes reached the diaper cannonballs, one of the crew's favorites, that a patron —not part of Newgate's former crew— got handsy with one of the waitresses and grabbed her ass, yelling something about showing her a good time loud enough to draw Newgate's attention. The girl, a pretty attractive blonde with droopy eyes in her late teens or early twenties (who had received a fair deal of comments from Newgate's now former crewmembers) didn't squeal, jump back, or slap the guy, nor did she try to politely get out of the situation. She grabbed the guy's hand and shoved him back with enough strength to make him crash into a nearby table. The sound drew enough attention that the entire bar was looking when she raised the empty tray she had been carrying and brandished it threateningly at the guy.

"Do that again and I'll shove this up your ass. No lube."

A short, stunned silence later that the girl used to move behind the bar, and the room exploded in roaring laughter and a good deal of saucy comments. Some about the waitress, but none _at_ her, because she had looked very much like she would go through with that threat.

"That's the right attitude for a pirate," Newgate told her, because she now stood with her back to him behind the bar, washing the mountain of mugs that had been piling up by the sink. "Tell me, would you like to join my crew and become my daughter?" Newgate later wouldn't know what had prompted him to ask, but he guessed the number of times his mug had been refilled had a lot to do with that.

She turned to look at him, her expression unchanged from the calm one she had on earlier.

"That's an odd combination."

Newgate shrugged.

"I'm a pirate, but I also want a family, so why not have both at once? What do you say? Fancy a change of life?"

"Sure, why not?"

Before Newgate could say anything else (and he might have, because that was certainly not the response he had expected) he was interrupted.

"Oi, Newgate! Gonna start that family of yours with some weird incestuous crap?"

Newgate looked down at his mug. It was empty, so he used it for target practice.

* * *

Newgate didn't remember much more of what happened that night, but when he woke up he had a massive hangover-induced headache, the room was too bright, and there was an incredibly annoying clinking sound assaulting his ears.

It was far too early, the exact same reason the sun had been shining straight on his eyes through what he assumed was a window. He couldn't tell for sure, because it was too soon for him to be able to open his eyes, but he did roll over so that the sun hit the back of his neck instead. His head, in turn, hit something solid and definitely made of wood which, aside from the extra boost to his headache, served to draw his attention to the fact he was lying on a hard and sticky surface.

"About time you woke up, I was about to drop something on your head," a vaguely familiar, definitely female voice spoke, ringing too loud in his ears despite the fact he was fairly sure she hadn't raised her voice at all.

He mumbled something that was supposed to be a word. Which word, he was not sure.

She scoffed.

"You passed out sometime after they challenged you to drink ten guys straight under the table —you did, by the way. Congratulations. I think you shoved your earnings somewhere in your underwear. I kicked the other pirates out an hour ago. Was gonna kick you out with them, but they said you weren't their crewmate anymore so I figured I could let you sleep until I'd cleaned the rest of the barroom. I'm almost done, by the way, so you should consider moving your ass."

Something thumped right before his face, and Newgate finally forced himself to open his eyes.

There was a full pot of coffee right next to his face, and crouching behind it holding a dirty rag was the blonde waitress from the previous night.

"If you promise not to throw up, that's on the house."

"Deal."

She stood up and moved over to one of the tables, which she had presumably been wiping before he woke up, and he sat up as gingerly as he could manage. The nausea, as it turned out, was nowhere as bad as his headache had suggested. He chugged down the coffee, that thankfully was just slightly warm and not scalding, which meant it had been made a while ago.

He didn't think it would be a good idea to stand up yet, though, so instead he looked around the now empty bar.

"They always leave you with cleanup?" he asked, because there had been at least other four waitresses last night, plus a nervous-looking guy Newgate had assumed to be the boss by the way he ordered most of the girls around.

"That's what happens when you're the new girl," she replied, moving on to the next table. For someone who had been working the entire night, she didn't appear tired at all. "I don't mind much, this way I get to eat breakfast from the fridge."

There was something really depressing about that statement. Besides, pirate or not, Newgate would feel bad leaving a kid like her doing all this work on her own when it would be done much sooner if they all pitched in. Which led him to a realization his hungover mind had failed to notice on first sight.

"How old are you?" Because looking at her with her eyeliner all smudged up, no red lipstick left, and the bright light of morning shining through the window, Newgate's assessment of her being in her late teens or early twenties seemed off now.

She stared at him for a moment, looked down at the hand with which she was scrubbing the table, and finally shrugged.

"Fifteen."

Newgate felt the slow gears of his brain moving. That was even younger than he had guessed.

"Didn't know they let minors work at bars in civilized towns."

"They don't," she replied simply. She threw the rag onto the bartop and started to pick chairs up and place them on top of the tables. "I'm not from around here."

Newgate knew to stand up when she grabbed the mop standing by a corner and waved it at him, and so he climbed carefully to his feet. He should have stopped drinking earlier. He moved to stand by the farthest corner from where she started mopping the dirty floor, staring at this too old little kid whose few words painted a picture he didn't like.

A stray, just like he had been.

"I was drunk last night, but I was serious," he said after a short silence.

"I know," she surprised him by replying.

"And you accepted?" That was a very stupid question to ask, and he blamed it on his hangover, but to know a _kid_ had accepted the offer of a random pirate she hadn't even met before to join his crew... it contradicted everything he had observed of her so far, and he wondered if she was as mature or aware of the world as she seemed.

She looked up at him, and her glare made it clear she knew what he was thinking.

"Do you honestly think I want to spend the rest of my life mopping floors and having to fend off drunken idiots? I'm not stupid. I accepted because I want out of here, and my gut tells me you're a decent guy. My gut never lies. And last night you _were_ one of the best behaved drunks I've ever seen. At least as far as we waitresses are concerned."

Newgate smiled. He would have laughed, but he doubted his head would allow it. That was a good explanation there, and given that it was mostly instinct that told him he wanted this girl as his daughter, he understood it perfectly.

"What's your name, brat?"

"Marco."

"I'm Edward Newgate, and I think you just became my first mate."

She smiled for the first time since they had met and nodded minutely.

"Okay then, _Captain_ , you got an idea how to get off this island now that your former crew stranded you here?"

"I intended to commission a ship." He patted his coat, in the inner pockets of which he kept his money (and it was all still there, he noted, because no one was suicidal enough to think he wouldn't wake up if they tried to steal from him). "I'm in no hurry, after all."

"You should head over to the yards, then, and see what you can get. I've heard they like to rip off unsuspecting people, so be careful with that."

Before Newgate could move, or mention that he could spot lies so easily it was laughable, the door burst open and around twenty marines poured into the barroom (Newgate really _should_ have been paying attention, but it seemed to be a busy hour outside).

"Freeze!" the probably-commander ordered, all the weapons trained on Newgate. "Where are the other pirates?!" he demanded, his eyes flicking to Marco long enough to signal that the question was most likely aimed at her.

She shrugged.

"They left. Maybe an hour ago? Not sure, try the port."

The commanding officer —a captain, Newgate identified— looked less than impressed at her before fixing his attention back on Newgate.

"Are you one of the pirates who arrived here last night?" he asked, but the way he looked Newgate up and down showed he had already decided.

"Yeah, can I help you?" Newgate asked, trying not to sound _too_ amused. A fight would help distract him from his headache, but he suspected Marco wouldn't appreciate it if he destroyed the room she had just cleaned.

"You can come quietly and without fuss. You are under arrest."

Oh well, he would buy her something nice to apologize.

* * *

Captain Jinn wasn't having the best of days. He had received news of the presence of pirates in the port town down the hill this morning, because apparently none of the ingrates who lived there could bother to call in for the marines when the pirates were spending money on their measly businesses. By the time he had arrived with a group of his men only one pirate remained, and Jinn had found himself in a bit on an awkward position, because said pirate was a _huge_ and pretty intimidating man who appeared to have a barmaid as a hostage. While Jinn may not have thought much of people who catered to pirates, he really didn't want to deal with the fallout of letting a woman get hurt when it could have been avoided.

'Appeared' was the operative word here, because, as it turned out, she wasn't a hostage. When the pirate, predictably, refused to come quietly, Jinn ordered the woman to get as far away as possible (the pirate stood between her and the door) and she, too, refused, saying there were actually _two_ pirates in the room.

One of his men had laughed, and she had thrown the mop she had been holding at him with enough accuracy for the handle to hit him across the neck. The blow slammed him on the ground and rendered him unconscious.

The pirate man had laughed and told her to stand back. Which she had refused to do, too, because the next thing Jinn knew, the man closest to her was down as well from what appeared to be a deceptively strong kick.

That was when Jinn ordered his men to attack, and also when things turned… odd.

The pirate man punched two marines straight through a wall, ordered her to stand back again, she ignored the order again and somehow broke a sword with _a high heel_ before stabbing the wielder of the sword with that same heel.

"Marco," the pirate man boomed (and wasn't that an odd name for a girl?), "stand back. I don't want any woman in my crew fighting."

She froze long enough for a marine to try to knock her out, but she moved out of the way and punched him in the gut.

"Say that again?" she asked softly, calmly, and it sent a chill down Jinn's spine. By now he only had nine men conscious, and was certain they were in over their heads despite having numbers on their side.

"I don't want any of my daughters to fight. Call it a moral thing, if you will, but it doesn't feel right to me."

She turned around in place and everything just… stilled. Jinn and his men stopped acting (they were just delaying being knocked unconscious or killed at this point, anyway), the pirate man looked deadly serious, and the girl… Marco? _His daughter_? Whatever. She somehow managed to look icy while keeping her eyes half-lidded and her hands innocuously by her sides.

"You know what?" she spoke finally, and she didn't sound particularly upset. "Forget it, this was a mistake. I'm not joining your crew."

She turned around and walked to the now cleared door, stepping over unconscious bodies, and left the bar. Jinn didn't bother to stop her —he knew where she worked, he would issue an arrest order later— but he took advantage of the pirate man's distraction as he stared after her to signal to his remaining men to take him.

The last thing he noticed was the air _vibrating_ before his eyes.

* * *

Marco was an _idiot_.

Her instincts had never failed her, never: not when she had decided to trust the fisherman who gave her a ride to this island (because she had wanted to arrive in as unremarkable a way as possible) in exchange for assistance during the trip, certain that he wouldn't try to take advantage of her; not when she had worked as a babysitter for a few months but left the house when the woman's boyfriend moved in because she didn't like him and a few weeks later he was arrested for raping the new nanny; not… well, _ever_. Which was why, when the drunk pirate who apparently wanted a family (and, damn, but the others had been pretty harsh with some of their supposed jokes) had asked her to join his crew she had accepted. Her gut had told her from the moment she had first noticed him that he was trustworthy, so she had accepted. Because Marco not only didn't want to spend her life working at a bar surrounded by creeps, but she wanted to travel the world. And pirating… as long as it wasn't one of those crews that assaulted, killed, and did all those unsavory things (and again her gut had told her Newgate wasn't one of those) then pirating sounded great. Travels, adventures, the sea, maps…

Of course, this had to be the time her gut was wrong.

Newgate may not fit the scumbag pirate category but he just so happened to be a sexist jerk, and she had discovered it _after_ attacking the local marines. Which meant she now had to move, hope either the captain wasn't a spiteful dirtbag or the marines saw no reason to mark her as wanted, and find another dingy bar or similar to keep working in across the sea. Because she still had nowhere near enough money to afford herself a boat.

This was the worst possible way for her luck to turn.

The only positive aspect of this whole mess was that all the women she shared a home with worked day jobs, and they were all gone by now, so Marco could rush straight into her room, pull her bag out of the bottom of her closet and start shoving all her meager possessions into it.

She was scribbling a quick note saying she was moving on to leave on the table when her senses tingled.

That man, Newgate, had the most impressive presence she had ever sensed, another reason she had found him interesting, and he was heading straight this way. It was too soon for him to have tracked down one of the other waitresses or the owner to get her address from them, so he either had incredible luck or Marco wasn't the only person around who could sense presences.

Marco had never met anyone else who had that skill.

Damn her luck.

Slamming the note on the table with far more force than necessary, she grabbed her bag and headed for the door. Halfway there, she remembered she still had last night's smudged makeup on, turned around to walk into the first bedroom in the hallway, stole a couple wipes and rubbed it off. She didn't look like a raccoon by the time she passed the mirror by the door, so she called it a success. She dropped her keys on the entrance table and walked out.

The house was on the outskirts of the town, far from most businesses and with the cheapest rent Marco had found for a place with only women, and she caught up to Newgate far enough from the town that there should be no curious eyes.

"Are you hard of hearing or something?" she demanded, stopping and crossing her arms. He was strong, stronger than her probably, she had seen as much, but she fully intended to take to the sky if she had to. She was simply in a bad mood now and maybe itching for another fight.

"No. I just wanted to talk this out."

"Talk _what_ out? How you're a sexist pig who doesn't take others' feelings or skills into account and adheres to some shitty old ideology? Isn't that hypocritical, by the way? Aren't pirates supposed to go against that sort of thing? Be free? Do whatever the fuck you want? And by _you_ , I mean _me_ , as in every individual person who chooses their own path."

He opened his mouth as if to speak, his face set on a look that was mostly stubbornness mixed in with something else Marco didn't care to look closely at. Marco didn't let him speak.

"You said you want a family, and I may be no expert on the subject —never had a family and all that— so I'm mostly guessing, but I'm pretty sure I'm right: whatever people say, families aren't perfect. Members don't always get along or agree, basically like everybody else, so what makes a family work is the capacity to compromise. To see if what someone's willing to give and isn't willing to give fits with the others. I'm not sold on that family idea of yours, I doubt anybody will be right away, and whoever joins your crew will have to see if they fit and want to be in this family of yours. Well, here's the thing: having someone decide what I can and can't do based on what's between my legs? That's a deal breaker for me. You're here, so I'm guessing you want me in the crew, so ask yourself this: are you willing to let go of that idea and stop trying to tell me what I can and can't do based on the fact I'm a woman?"

Newgate hadn't tried to talk since she had first mentioned the family issue, which meant he had either decided to listen or had given up on her. When she uncrossed her arms and took the first step forward, he finally spoke.

"You're a very smart kid." Which, while not a response to anything she had said, was an observation she was willing to accept.

She shrugged and walked past him.

"I've dealt with a lot of crap. I'll be demanding my last paycheck. If you think you can get your head outta that macho ass of yours, track me down. If not…" she turned around, "don't get caught, I guess. And don't invite other women to your crew unless you're sure they're happy playing damsel in distress."

* * *

Newgate had been scolded a handful of times during his life. Granted, it had never been by a girl half his age who didn't reach his knees, but he could admit Marco had some valid points.

Families, no matter what an abandoned kid who had never had one thought, weren't perfect. People had disagreements, argued, fought… It happened with friends, and it would happen with whatever family Newgate managed to gather. Things could be good, but they would never be perfect. That was a truth he needed to accept.

Marco was strong, he had seen as much —there was one marine who would most likely lose an eye from one of her kicks, amongst other things— and she clearly knew how to take care of herself. Seeing her anger today, Newgate understood she would never allow for others to take on her fights as long as she had the strength to do it herself.

Which was both disconcerting and, at the same time, wasn't.

It was strange for a street punk to have picked up such an idea as that of not letting women fight when he had grown up in an environment where everybody basically fended for themselves, be they male, female, adult, or child. Yet he had, and had never questioned it, no matter the fact he knew women _could_ fight. He had seen proof of it on multiple occasions: currently, just to put an example, there was a marine rear admiral by the name of Tsuru who appeared often on the newspapers and looked like a prospective candidate to end up becoming one of the strongest members of the marines.

It wasn't that Newgate thought women _weak_ ; he just… didn't think they should fight.

And yet…

Marco didn't appear surprised at all when she rounded the corner, an envelope in her left hand, and saw him sitting there, despite the fact that Newgate knew for a fact he couldn't be seen from around the corner (it added to his suspicion that she might be a haki user, along with the fact he believed she had known he was coming to her house before seeing him, and how her heel hadn't snapped when she broke a sword with it).

"I might slip," he said. Because, the truth was, he didn't know how to change this particular thought process, how to get rid of his knee-jerk reaction of wanting women out of battles. "Probably a lot." But he really wanted Marco as his daughter.

She stopped and turned to look at him with a deadly serious look for a long moment. Finally, she smirked.

"Don't worry, I'll get your ass every time you do."

 **The End**

* * *

…Marco's rant wasn't part of the original plot, but when I started writing I realized I had to address that issue, so there.

It's very likely I will write some more into this verse, because Female Marco has kind of captured me (also, I came up with a reason for keeping the name, even if I admit the real one is I suck at coming up with or modifying names). It will probably be set much later in the future and be MarcoAce. And maybe other stuff.

Please, leave a review before you go telling me what you thought :)


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